


Woof, Hiya Sammy

by Keitmeg



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst and Feels, Bestiality, Dog Dean, Hurt Sam Winchester, Implied Lucifer/Sam Winchester, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Lucifer in the Cage, M/M, Masturbation, Men of Letters Bunker, One-Sided Attraction, Selfless Sam, Top Dean, Wincest - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-07-11 14:58:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7057168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keitmeg/pseuds/Keitmeg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A witch hits Dean with a spell that changes him into a dog, and now, Sam has to find a way to change him back to normal. All the while, Dean gets a glimpse on little shanks of how Sam spends his days and nights.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Woof, Hiya Sammy

**Author's Note:**

> Beware of the tags. Typos are mine, feel free to correct or con-cri. I don't own SPN.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

 

 **A** door’s hinges creak and echo throughout the dilapidated house, and Sam holds his gun to his chest in a death grip. He scans his dim surroundings with a pair of trembling eyes and the dreary silence tells him something is bound to happen, not anything good, he thinks.

He remembers Dean sitting at the library this morning and telling him about how he caught wind of a possible case on Satan-worshipers wreaking havoc in a town a few hours away from theirs.

It wasn’t too long that they dealt with Dean finally meeting the topside after grueling months of fighting for his life in Purgatory, and it wasn’t too long that their grandfather fell down their closet and showed them to their legacy. And with everything on their plate, Sam thought it was a little too soon on setting out to embark on their monster hunts. But Dean has been acting antsy lately, like a caged wolf, for a footloose that wasn’t anything new, seeking an outlet whenever the pressure of boredom was too tight on his chest. Though what Sam did want was for them to take it easy inside their new base at the bunker and get to discover its secreted doors. Seven feet bookshelves of intricate, thought-provoking and even poignant books-and frankly he’s ran out of superlatives to describe them-was his heaven on earth. Actually, scratch that, what Sam really wanted during their stay at their new base was for him to get reacquainted with some of Dean’s quirks again in spite of the friction growing intense between them. But weighing his brother’s distress and his selfish desire to have his brother at a vintage point in order to study him more, the damn scale heaved for his brother’s favor, and Sam couldn’t exactly just dismiss this fact so he caved in eventually.

And that was how they veered off the road to come to Esbon, Kansas.

At one point during their investigation, it crossed his mind after taking in the perturbed townspeople eyeing their cheap FBI suits and shiny loafers that those were a rarity around here. The town is a harmless place with a population of 100 that has never really gone after trouble, the people only wanted some peace of mind and to be left alone. But after digging through the case, the two brothers had come to learn that the case might not be just a few Satan-worshiping hooligans, if the ritualistic signs of baby human bones and hex bags were anything to go by. At last, they ruled it that the perpetrator had been an active witch who-strangely yet unexpectedly-had a wild penchant for maltreating animals.

 

A precipitous clang resonates through the sordid and barely standing pillars and Sam swivels around, suddenly too alarmed and wary. If only he knew where Dean is, he’d at least assuage his fears for his brother and knowing someone is protecting your back kind of gives a nice feeling. Sam then decides to venture out of the dank room and search for his brother who said once they parted that he was scouting the basement.

The wooden floor, carpeted with a mucky and worn out moquette, creaks under his weight as he moves further. He swings the gun in his hands whenever he expedites to search the rooms, however carefully.

“Sam.”

The breathy voice comes from behind him, so he turns around to see Dean approaching him with a visible scowl.

“Find anything?” He asks, eyes searching the place with the caution of a hunter.

Sam finally slumps his shoulders and eases the gun down beside his hip. He shakes his head, furrowing because that’s just part of his traits now. “No.” He says, “you?”

“Except for the smell of rotten eggs? No, I didn’t find anything.” Raising his thump over his shoulder to point at the direction he came from, he says, “The basement was so confined, not enough room to swing a cat.” And he looks smug after he does.

Sam cocks a brow, calculating the possible pun behind the statement seeing how they’re dealing with a witch who maltreats animals, and he doesn’t feel proud of his older brother when he does, “grow up.”

Dean chuckles, “come on, it’s funny.”

An abrupt thump thwarts their jokey banter and the two spin around with guns in hands, navigating their surroundings like a compass.

“Can’t be a bust, we already went over this” Dean mumbles hurriedly, “Let’s just gank the bitch and get this over with, Coquette’s edition is coming out today.”

Sam snorts, “The hummingbird?” He asks, the confusion coating his features.

“No, geek boy.” Dean rolls his eyes, “it’s an adult magazine-just get your head in the game, wouldja?”

As if offended, the haggard witch finally makes an appearance in her long grey cloak, and the two brothers don’t really have time to deliver a life-altering insult about her broom bristle hair and the muddy cloak that’d certainly bring out the color of her teeth as they shoot one bullet after another. One of which manages to hit her right in the heart and she lets out a shrieking shout, but it’s a little too early to celebrate because she obviously doesn’t want to die in peace only after she avenges her death, typical witch quirks.

She mumbles an incantation and a green light suddenly surges around and lunges towards Sam.

“SONOFABI-Sam, duck!”

But as the said male crouches down to avoid the spell; his lanky legs are slow to bend so the movement is altered. Dean watches the scene unfolding like a slow motioned take, and it dawns on him that his brother can’t move out of the way in time, so his instincts kick in and he leapfrogs in front of Sam, taking the blow with a deep grunt.

“Dean!” Sam squeaks when his brother slumps onto the floor with a scary thump. He scurries towards him with an insistent fear pulverizing his rib cage. _Oh, please no_.

The witch crumbles to the ground like a rack of bricks, she wheezes her last breath and life slowly slips out from her mouth.

Dean groans his protest when Sam turns him around, checking for any wounds or anything remotely magical taking place over his big brother’s body, fortunately, he finds nothing.

“Dean, quit playing possum, I need to know if you’re OK.” He coaxes him, and Dean grunts because _hello?_ A witch just hit him with a spell of who knows what crap, he feels temporarily incapacitated but he gradually stretches his limbs.

“That bitch did a number on me, but I’m fine.” He rasps out, sitting up with his brother’s help. He checks the remnant of the witch and a smirk taints his lips, “serves you right for zapping my awesome ass.”

“Come on, let’s get out of here.” Sam grits out when he tries to hoist his brother to his feet. But when his hands leave his brother’s, Dean sways slightly on his feet and Sam has to hold him by the shoulders again to right him, “you sure you’re fine?”

“Yea,” he knits is brows, waving a lackadaisical hand to make light of his dizziness, “just a bitch of vertigo. Let’s torch this place down and get the hell outta here.”

The two brothers lean on the Impala’s doors, watching the flames eat the house and burn the wicked creature within. The cracking reminds them of the dream to set a bonfire on the beach that the two knew was never going to happen.

“What’ you think she was trying to do to you?” Dean asks out of the blue, his green eyes turning brown as a result of the orange shade.

Sam shrugs, shifting his weight on his other leg, “probably nothing, we already wasted her by the time she casted the spell.”

“Yea, you’re probably right.” Dean smiles in relief.

Little did they know, they were so going to regret those words.

Sam is the one who drives in spite of Dean’s complaints ‘nobody drives his Baby but him’ and Sam tells him to shove it because he doesn’t want to end up crashing against a trunk.

When they reach the bunker, Dean retreats to his room without much of chitchat.

 

Sam ignored the way Dean growled a rude ‘do I look like I’m up for a lecture?’ when he’d tried to instigate a round of harsh excoriating, turn his brother’s lights out for good measures too.

 

Sam is loitering in the kitchen, studying his options and his choices. First, he can’t believe they finally have a real kitchen where they can cook and eat whenever they so desire. He’s seen his share of dingy motels by now and if there’s someone apt to find faults with this place it’s him and his brother, so it honors the bunker when Sam admits the bunker is perfect, almost too perfect. And second, he can’t bring himself to call the base his home yet. It hasn’t been more than a few days since they settled down and honestly, the bunker, even with all its security and luxury, it just can’t compare to their father’s momentum. To Sam, the Impala is always going to be their home, especially his. He’s never lived in a homey house before, and he has no memory whatsoever of being around his entire family snuggled over a warm sofa, sharing non-alcoholic eggnog and giggling over some special Friends’ marathon.

But Dean, he seems to have no qualms with calling this place home. Heck, he’s decorated his room military-style and if it were in Sam to crack that style, he’d have knocked him off his high horse to the realm of the living and told him the Impala was their home. But Sam quickly capitulates to his brother’s wishes because not only he is the oldest, but he’s the one that truly deserves this ‘bat cave’ after the rough patch he’s been through and all the crap that’s piled up at his feet without his consent.

After a few hours of surfing the internet with no apparent purpose, his eyes finally sting and he takes it as his cue as he replaces the laptop over his nightstand and dives into the sheets.

 

Sam wakes up to the sound of insistent scratching on his door. He lingers a bit more under the warmth because not a tornado could fend off the sleep lodged over his lids. Well, except for the scratching noises, so it seems.

Groaning, Sam sits up and rubs his nape with a large yawn. But when he hears the noises again, he becomes extremely alerted, he grabs his gun and tiptoes over to the door, pressing its handle and edging it open very slowly. And soon, he learns who, or in this case, what was making those noises.

A German shepherd with black mask and black body markings is sitting on its hocks and titling its head at Sam’s furrow.

“Hey buddy, where did you come from?” He crouches down to place the gun on the floor and to pet the dog’s withers, and he rejoices inwardly when the dog shows signs of liking it. “How did you get in here?” Asking so, his hands fumble with the dog’s neck, searching for a name-tag which he doesn’t find, “OK, um” he rakes a hand through his own hair and looks momentarily around, “you’re not a skin walker, a familiar?”

But the dog only shakes his head and Sam arches his eyebrows to show his impress.

“Of course, and it wouldn’t make sense because Larry said this place was warded against all evil.” Sam ducks his head enough to look between the dog’s hocks, “male, thought so.” He concludes. Chuckling, Sam levers up to his feet, scanning the hallway, “oh man, Dean’s going to be so pissed  when he hears about this.” He mumbles to himself urgently. He looks at the dog and points his index, “stay here, OK? Don’t go anywhere.” Saying so, he makes his way towards his brother’s room, already thinking through how he’d explain this when he doesn’t even know anything about it. He knocks on Dean’s bedroom door for a couple of times before he opens it, but was he surprised to see the room as right as nine-pence, and the made bed tells him his brother has long since left bed to go for a grocery run, most likely.

“Great.” He sighs, his shoulders drooping with unease.

When he looks around, the dog is pacing after him with a glint in his tawny eyes while his long pinkish tongue lolls round his jawline.

Sam is a very skilled and strong hunter, a stout, so to speak; he’s killed many rogue creatures before and even though not all of his ventures ended well, he still proved he could be counted on. But beneath all the firm muscles and his typical brood, there laid a very childish fondness for dogs. So when the dog’s eyes glinted, Sam found himself falling to his knees and petting its back with an unconscious smile flourishing over his thin lips.

“Oh well, guess you’d stay ‘til my brother comes back.” His dimpled smile shines some more, “I’m Sam, by the way, um, what should I call you?” He looks thoughtful, and the dog barks for some reason, “OK, I know, I’m so going to get yelled at by Dean if I do this, but he’s done that a couple of times and what’s one more? I’ll call you Dean.” And surprisingly enough, the dog wags its tail in return, “you like the moniker, huh?” He chuckles and the dog barks back. Sam stands up, ushering the dog to follow close behind, “let’s get you something to eat. We don’t really have dog food here, you know, we don’t usually keep pets. But I hope you can settle for a homemade breakfast, you wouldn’t want large knuckle bones, would you?” He asks incuriously once he walks into the kitchen, “You see, my brother has very nasty eating habits, and that, my buddy, is where you’re lucky.” He doesn’t even notice how the dog snarls fleetingly but quiets down when Sam places a piece of a pizza’s leftover in front of him, “here, it’s only one day old, make do with that until I go for another dog food run.”

Sam takes out a bottle of milk from the fridge and a box of cereal from one of the cupboards, and he pours some of each into a bowl. He sits back at the table and watches as the dog munches the piece of pizza halfheartedly.

“We need to figure out how you got in here,” he puts his spoon into the half empty bowl and looks at the dog, “I don’t suppose there’s some secret passage inside the bunker that connects to the outside.”

When the dog only stares at him, Sam heaves a sigh, “you have no idea what I’m saying, do you?” He snorts, “Must be nice, worrying only about getting your stomach fed, giving no damn about what goes bump in the night.” He says, casting his eyes down and smiling longingly somewhere over his lap, “wonder how it’d feel if I pretended nothing was wrong anymore.”

The dog stands up and marches towards Sam, he nudges his muzzle against Sam’s middle and lets out a very low whimper.

Sam chuckles gently, and ruffles the plush around the dog’s loin. “You’re such a sweet dog, aren’t you?” When the said dog looks up into his eyes, Sam can’t help but admit a little secret, “to be honest, I’ve always wanted to have a dog, like, it’d be so cool if he’d tag along when Dean and I go for a hunt, he’d have our backs, warn us and all. But brother told me that it’s a lot of trouble because we didn’t have a place of our own then, and it was hard enough looking after ourselves, so.” He cocks his head, “but I wonder if he’d change his mind now that we have the bunker.”

The dog pulls away and shakes his head with a deep snarl.

“I agree, he’s not going to allow it.” Sam shrugs, “but until we figure this out, you’re going to stay here, with _me_.”

He washes the bowl and wipes the place the dog ate at, and then wheels back to his room to collect his phone and laptop. And one click on his phone’s start button shows him the received message, it simply says, [I had a call from Kevin this morning. I’ll go meet with him and see how this pans out for us.]

Sam stands beside his bed, awestruck, goggle-eyed staring at the screen of his phone.

“Kevin is alive?” He mumbles, and a not too far memory of him and Kevin and Crowley at Dick’s lab crawls its way back to him. He remembers how the King of Hell kidnapped the prophet and uttered venomous words just to spite his favorite moose, and then Sam was completely alone. He finally lets go of the tormenting past and saunters towards the library with Dean at tow.

He seats himself over one of the wooden chairs and opens his laptop. The dog leaps over the table and almost knocks one of the lamps.

“Whoa!” Sam gushes, “No rodeo shows, buddy, we clear?” He tries to push the dog off the table but the latter pounds his paw against Sam’s hand, “don’t act spoiled now, get off the table.” He pushes gently again and the dog accidentally claws the skin of his forearm, making Sam hiss at the sting. “Dean, you wounded me!” He cradles his hand to his chest, looking closely at the shallow cut and then switching to look back at the dog’s wrinkles and he suddenly feels sorry for scaring the dog. “Don’t give me that look now, it’s not like I’m gonna die.” Sam chuckles to ease the dog’s apparent worry, “look, it’s not even that serious.” Saying so, he holds out his wounded hand coated with a long string of blood.

The dog erupts on his paws, alerted.

“It’s fine” Sam mollifies, bringing the cut to his mouth, he licks the long trace of blood back to the cut, “see, not even that deep.”

The dog ducks down to lick Sam’s cut, which makes Sam chuckle more, “kisses heal wounds faster, huh?”

And as though the dog feels offended by the words, he turns around and flops off the table, disappearing under it.

Half an hour later, Sam’s eyes feel tired and he closes his lap with a click. He leans back on the chair and eyes his phone. He hasn’t received any calls so far and the worry is slowly starting to dawn on him, maybe he should call and make sure Kevin and Dean are fine.

“Know what,” he heaves out, “a shower is exactly what I need to get my mind back in the game.” Saying so, he pushes the chair back and bends over to look for the dog under the table, and he finds him sprawled on his hocks, snoring. “Guess I’ll go by myself.”

He grabs a beer on his way because a parched gullet is the last thing he needs over his heavy heart.

 

He’s finally enjoying the warm water inside the tub. He takes a few swigs of his beer and rejoices when it cools down his growing rage, even for a little while.

Mulling over the past never really did any good for him, he’s tried to quit this habit before, but he failed tremendously.

Every time he tries to start over, a new page, a new life, it always backfires and bites him in the ass. He goes over his meager achievements, not many to speak of. He’s failed his father, he’s failed his brother and he’s certainly failed himself. And the one justification he used to tell himself that he never chose this for himself, others did it for him, is not working anymore. Always, he can see the blame in his brother’s eyes, hiding his reproach, his accusing words so that he wouldn’t hurt his little brother. Such a sacrifice for Sam’s unworthy existence, such a priceless sacrifice, indeed.

 

The dog suddenly interrupts his thoughts when he marches in, his tongue lolling down his long jaw.

“Hey buddy,” Sam gives a benign smile, tossing his lax body on the back of the tub, “you were snoring and I didn’t wish to disrupt your nap.”

The dog stooges around in the bathroom, panting as he sniffs around.

“What’s wrong? Did you get lonely?” It makes him smirk, but when the dog snarls at him, he takes it back. “Sorry.”

He lifts the beer bottle from the tiled floor so he could chuck its content down. He looks up at the ceiling and relaxes under the feather-light touch of the-now-lukewarm water on his bare skin. “Strange, isn’t it?”

But the dog only stares blankly back at him.

“I'd left this life more than fifteen years ago, but I was dragged right back in.” He sighs, “Not saying I didn’t want it, but I had to pay a price.” He looks at the dog now, shifting around to lean on the edge of the tub so he’d look directly into the dog’s eyes, “my father, he was one tough son of a bitch.” And the dog barks, he agrees, Sam thinks. “He taught us how to be good hunters, he spent his life trying to plant it into us, but I always felt out of proportion. Violence didn’t set well with me, you know? And I used to think that it wasn’t fair that we couldn’t stay at one place, at one school, always traveling around the country and going after what other _normal_ people would run the other direction from.” He heaves out a full bodied sigh this time around, “I’d left it all behind, I went to college, I was gonna’ be a lawyer, I had a girlfriend, her name was Jess.” At this, he almost chokes on the words, and he runs his fingers through his wet chestnut mop, “but she died.”

The dog only stares at him with more wrinkles.

“I do miss her, you know?” He allows a stutter-y laugh to make its way only to veil his grief, “I guess I just never got over her death, Dean. I caused a lot of death and grief even though I never meant for any of it to happen, those weren’t just mistakes that I can wipe away with some freaking magic amnesia. I failed a lot of people, I failed my friends, my family. And every time I try to do better, I just walk into the same wall.”

The dog barks with his tail tucked in.

“Are you also trying to tell me none of it was my fault?” He asks, an incredulous tone churning his voice.

The dog barks again.

Sam laughs wholeheartedly, “You’re exactly like Dean,” when his laughter subsides, he looks directly at the dog, “my brother, he’s amazing.” Sam flushes gradually and darts a warranting index at the dog, “and if you ever tell him I said that, I’ll deny it.”

The dog tilts his head.

“But yea, he is,” Sam leans his chin on his twined hands. “He’s always been there for me, he’s always protected me, giving up on things he wants all for my sake.” He shakes his head, “and he’s bloody-headed about it too, heck, he’s more stubborn than I am. But he’s always forgiven me, standing up for me even if I did him wrong.” He lifts doleful eyes and smiles proudly, “pretty awesome, isn’t he?”

The dog barks more now, and he finally jumps into the tub splashing water all over the place.

“You little bastard,” Sam gushes, laughing all-earnestly, “OK then, let’s wash you up too, won’t have you smelling like a wet dog when brother comes in.” He pauses and cocks his head, “Yes, you are a dog, ‘m aware of that, and I can’t believe I just called this place home.” Shaking his head, he uses some of his shower gel on the wet hair and scrubs it, chuckling when the dog purrs.

 “We’re done here, come on buddy.” Sam urges the dog to leave the tub so he’d wash himself and leave as well, but when he stands up, a wave of uninvited dizziness hits him and the room spins around. Sam whimpers and crouches down again, gripping the edge of the tub until the color drains from his knuckles.

The dog barks in response and nudges the tip of his nose against Sam’s cheek, willing him to raise his head.

“’m fine” Sam wheezes out, ruffling the dog’s fur. “Guess it’s just a slight head rush.”

He finally leaves the bathroom and walks into his bedroom, unmindful of his and the dog’s long trail of water they’ve left behind.

When he’s changed into his grey T and dark sweatpants, Sam lounges over his bed with Dean stretched out next to him. Sam checks his phone for any missed calls or messages but he finds nothing, and that’s when worry promotes itself a notch up. “He hasn’t’ called yet, I’m really starting to worry.”

The dog only raises its ears in response.

“Maybe I should call him.” He looks at the dog, but the latter only blinks lazily at him. “But I don’t want to pry. We’re still settling our differences, you know? It’s no easy kiss and make up when it comes to Dean, I don’t want him to think that I don’t trust him or anything.”

The dog barks.

“I do trust him.” He mumbles, “I trust him with my life.”

The dog raises his head a little just enough to rest it back on Sam’s lap.

Smiling, Sam replaces his palm over the dog’s head, petting it ever so gently. And without any warnings, sleep catches on him as well.

The next time he wakes up, he finds the phone still in his hand, waiting patiently to be used. He eyes the dog sleeping like a log and giving no hoots about the worry of the world. Sam dials his brother’s number seeing that it was past five in the evening.

It rings again and again but no one picks up the call.

Sam shoots up from his nest failingly and it makes the dog growl his displeasure, “I need to go after Dean, something must have happened, he’s not answering his phone.”

The dog barks after he rises up over the mattress.

Sam quickly slips out of his clothes, and he pulls his duffel and dives into it, rummaging around for a pair of jeans and clean flannel. “He said he was going to meet Kevin, but what if that was a trap? What if it was just one of Crowley’s minions pretending to be him?” Huffing under his breath, he zips up his fly and puts on his flannel, “what if something happened to Dean,” and as the realization sinks in, Sam’s heartbeats pick up the pace, “Oh my God, what if Cowley got the jump on him?” with trembling hands, he rubs down his face, “there’s no time to get a rental, it’s better if I use one of the cars at the garage.”

Without any more delay, Sam grabs his phone and jogs towards the garage with the dog running and barking at his tail.

“It won’t take long, I hope.” Sam says when he pauses to calm the dog down, “I can’t take you with me in case it’s dangerous out there, and we’ve just come to know each other, I’d hate to put you in that kind of position, too.”

He launches towards the garage again, ignoring the insistent barks of his new friend. Sam grinds to a sudden halt when he walks through the entrance, “what the” is the only mutter he makes when he sees the Impala parked at its usual spot with its driver’s door spread open.

He approaches it carefully, scanning its empty seats with worried eyes. “Why-…” he gulps his hesitation down and peers into the car from the driver’s seat, and that’s when he finds Dean’s phone and clothes scattered on the enamel floor, even his boots. He quickly collects them, inspecting them haphazardly, he doesn’t know why, he just does it. “What the hell is this? What does this mean?”

The dog’s loud and abrupt bark makes Sam jump in his place. His perturbed face changes into a pair of surprised eyes, and then morphs into something like utter rage, he puts two and two together after going through a mental flashback on last night and today’s events, and he finally comes out with a conclusion, “N-no way.”

The dog looks away only briefly, then back at Sam.

“Dean?” When the dog tilts its head, Sam rolls his eyes “I mean, my brother Dean?” He furrows even more, if that’s even possible.

The dog barks and nods his head.

Sam puts the pile of clothes back into the car and he straightens up to near the dog, raking a trembling hand through his hair. “Dean? But… was it that witch’s spell?”

Dean nods.

“Oh my God,” Sam looks frustratingly around but nothing really registers, he only sees a wave of haze looming in like a disease. “I didn’t…” he thumbs his temples and closes his eyes, “ah, OK, that half is clear.” He dampens his lips and clears his throat, looking at the dog now, “but why didn’t the spell work last night? I mean why did it wait until today?”

Dean looks away again.

“OK, you can bark but you can’t talk.” Sam palms his mouth along with his chin, resting the other hand over his hip, “so if you can’t talk, I just have to find a way to understand you” saying so, he heads back the way he came from, assured that Dean is walking close by, “if I look around, maybe I can find something, some kind of mind melding spell, I mean animals have a universal language, so it can’t be that hard, right?”

When he reaches his room, he flops onto his bed, and the way Dean jumps to his earlier spot on the bed doesn’t go undetected by Sam. The latter opens his laptop and clicks a few keyboards, typing and deleting and scrolling with a pair of wide and observing eyes.

“OK, I think I found something.” Comes the good news after almost half an hour of digging around the internet. “If crazy is anything to go by.”

Dean props his head up and waits.

“So there’s this guy whose dog witnessed a murder, he tried to teach him to speak. Elusive success because the experiment failed,” he looks up, thoughtful for a minute, “there’s got to be something here with a spell, and while I’m on it, I can search for something that’d change you back. After we wasted that witch, our chances of finding anything that’d reverse the spell are pretty much down to zero.”

Dean’s wrinkles deepen.

“But don’t worry.”

Sam could hear _too late_ being gruffly uttered.

“I’ll do my best to change you back, Dean.”

He pushes himself off of the hard mattress and scurries towards the library.

All the while, as he ghosts his hands over the books on the shelf, pecking the most appealing titles, Sam can’t ignore the flutter churning inside his stomach. He said things that he normally felt reluctant to in front of his brother; he admitted his weaknesses to his brother in a way he sees shameful. Just for how long is he going to make the same mistakes over and over?

Not now, this isn’t about his insecurities, this is about his brother who needs his help, he can at least try his hardest to show that he can be relied on, instead of always being dependent.

 

He pecks a few thick books and drops them on the table, “Alright, guess it’s gonna be a long night.” Saying so, he plunges into his seat and opens the book at the top of the stacked collection.

Dean leaps over the table again, lying comfortably on it.

“Dude, seriously?” Sam grumbles, “Even as a dog, you can at least have some manners.”

Dean only twitches his ears; he doesn’t want to be bothered.

Sam lets out a sigh, and resumes the reading.

A stack of books and two beers later, Sam slumps back on the back of the chair, using the heels of his hands to rub his eyes. He glances at his wrist watch, which shows seven, and he snaps his fingers at Dean, “I need to stretch my legs, wanna tag along?”

Dean perches up on his hocks.

“It’s a plan then,” he gives a temporary dimpled smile but it disappears almost too quickly, “I’ll grab my jacket, wait here.”

After he dons his jacket on, Sam walks to the garage and finds Dean sitting at the driver’s seat looking visibly impatient, which makes him laugh. “Getting too comfy in there, big brother?”

Dean snarls.

Sam raises placating hands to indicate his harmless intentions, “but maybe you should let me drive. Have you forgotten you have paws for hands, I don’t think night patrols would be so amused at the sight of a dog driving a classic wheel with me riding shotgun.”

Dean whimpers and looks down.

“Or we can take a stroll just around the neighborhood, if this bothers you so much, your call.” He shrugs, suggestively.

Dean slides to the passenger’s seat, visibly disapproving of riding shotgun when it’s his Baby.

Sam hops in as well, and veers off the swinging gates, letting the car eat the gravel as they drive over the main road. Dean barks at Sam, and the latter seems to understand it without it being spoken in words, “OK, fine.” He huffs out, slowing enough to roll down the window at Dean’s side. “Better now?”

Dean nods and gets his face out of the window just slightly so the wind could brush over his hair.

Sam chuckles at the sight even if he still can’t believe that the dog is just his brother riding shotgun with him. Which immediately takes him to last night’s hunt, how Dean shielded him, how it’d have been him turning into a dog if Dean didn’t make a human shield out of himself to protect his little brother. The despair and agony this memory leaves him with are just too much to take now. So he shakes his head and switches the radio on, The Jompson Brother’s Barely Alive blasts out with its deep beets.

Dean swings his head towards him, and Sam shrugs, “what? I’m not changing the station.”

Dean growls.

“Look dude, you can whine all you want about this band, but just so we’re clear, Chris Stapleton rocks.” He focuses on the road again, “give him any song and he’ll sing the lights out of it.”

Dean caves in, and he slides his head out of the window again.

♫ _Everything is falling darker every day and every night_

 _Like I thought it would._  ♫

Sam looks at Dean again, and then fragments of things he said this morning come back to haunt him again, so he drowns in the embarrassment and shame as the intermittent street lights move by.

♫ _Everything I ever had was part of you and I_

 _Now there's nothing good._  ♫

The ride lasts until the song ends with repetitive lines and finally dies away like the light of the sun when sinking beyond the horizon. Sam pulls over beside a large curb, and when Dean cocks his head, the other only juts towards a food truck parked just ahead. “Dinner.”

 

“Heads up.” Sam prompts once he comes back with foil-wrapped take out. When Dean barks excitedly, Sam chuckles and opens the door so his brother could get out. He opens one of the foiled sandwiches and places it on the ground. “It’s turkey club.”

Dean sniffs at it with a snarl.

“What, you want cola with it?” He jokes, and Dean barks at him for payback. “Yeah yea, eat your dinner.”

Sam leans on the hood, munching down his sandwich and sucking from the straw of his cola.

“You know, I think the only good thing that came out of you changing into a dog is that you can’t give me smarty retorts, I’d do without it for a few more days too.” He almost singsongs, enjoying his ham and cheese with every blissful bite. “All it took is one spell and it’s How To Train Your Dog.”

Dean ignores him as he pecks the meat parts.

“Maybe I should _dig out_ Garth’s number, have him _sniff out_ some lore about this.” He punctuates it for teasing purposes that don’t go unnoticed by his brother, who barks at him. “OK, OK” Sam says through a stifled chortle, “No more dog puns, Gosh, you’re so grumpy when you’re a dog.”

Moments later, Sam calls it night and he drives them back to the bunker. It’s crossed his mind to give Dean the choice where he wants to sleep, after all, Dean’s memory foam mattress is a lot comfier than Sam’s cemented brick of a bed, and he may want to sleep in his room and nowhere else. But he doesn’t word it; he only leaves his door open for Dean to make the decision if he so ever chooses.

 

Sam is in the bathroom, brushing his teeth when Dean marches in, clinging to the sink as if he wants to stand.

“Want me to brush your teeth too?” Sam asks, already pecking his brother’s toothbrush from its cup. “You know, these are disposable, so you can throw it away when we get you back to normal.”

Dean nods, but the most unbelievable thing is that he allows his brother to brush his fangs.

 

Sam sags back in his bed with his back to the headboard, and Dean jumps over the bed to the same spot. He stares lengthily as Sam opens his laptop and cycles between tabs and windows for anything that could provide him with an answer to their current dilemma, and slowly he drifts off to sleep. Sam continues to surf around the internet with a visible crease marring his forehead, intent on finding answers, the sooner the better, right?

He only surrenders to sleep when the clock hits four in the morning, but his rest is disturbed by afflicting nightmares of watching helpless while his brother crumbles down over his pond of blood, rasping a pained ‘you did this to me, Sammy’, so when he jolts awake all sweaty, it’s six and a half in the morning.

He glances sideways and Dean is still there, only staring somewhere on the beige walls with a pair of dulled eyes.

Sam can’t bring himself to really care because he feels his traitorous lids closing again, so he shifts around but his hand accidentally flops over Dean’s plush, and it takes him back to the struggle they have on their plate. Fighting to keep the sleep at bay, he ruffles the fluffy hair and looks at the dog through slanted eyes. “Morning, Dean.” His dimpled smile is almost blinding. “What’ you wanna have for breakfast?”

Dean only purrs.

Sam swings his legs out of the bed, plastering them on the floor to make for the bathroom.

All of his morning routine-including feeding himself and Dean- is done and over with and now he settles for reading the pile of books from the day before, “some way to start the day, isn’t it.” He arcs his brows. He takes a deep breath and drags a thick book to open in front of him. Around lunch hour, Sam props up with a radiant face, “listen to this, apparently the Men of Letters did come across the same witch we ganked at Esbon. They got tipped by some dude who earned the building which is now a comics shop at Normal, Illinois. Remember, same place Henry took us to that day, with the unicursal hexagram symbol and all?” His eyes are wide and expectant.

Dean stares with his glinting eyes.

“Maybe if we go there, I don’t know, maybe we can find something?” He stands up, but when Dean stays glued to his spot over the table, Sam rolls his eyes, “look, I’m not so positive about this either but it’s all we’ve got, and until we do find something concrete, I say we go there and see for ourselves.” When this does so very little to prompt Dean’s eagerness, Sam tries another tactic, “we can grab lunch on the way?” and it works wonders as Dean jumps off the table and frisks about, jogging towards the staircase leading to the front door.

 

They’re driving on the freeway with Kings of Leon’s Radioactive blaring through the radio; they’ve already stopped at a diner and grabbed their lunch.

Sam glances over at Dean, and his brows twitch at the slumped posture, so he thinks of a way to shoo the boredom away. And what’s the one thing Dean has always insisted they do when they’re up for a road trip to get rid of boredom?

Singing, yes.

So he sings along, though his voice can’t compare to Robyn’s, he does a pretty good job because even Dean is looking interested. He sings louder with a smile invading his thin lips, showing his sweet dimples and sending a bright glimmer to his hazel eyes as they reflect the afternoon sun. Dean howls, wagging his tail over the vinyl. Sam laughs genuinely, “That was in sync, Dean.” He ruffles the plush coat rounding his crest, “good boy!”

And Sam would give anything to take that back because the embarrassment it leaves him with is stifling.

 

It’s a few hours till they reach their next destination. Sam parks at this narrow street that has different shops and stores lined at each side, he waits until the rumble of the Impala dies to eye the place through the windshield, “This is it, 242 Gaines Street, that’s the same antique store, and the same NU shop.” He looks at Dean, who is eyeing said places and lingers long enough to take in the sight of presumably delicious pita bread, and he lets out a shallow sigh, “so here’s what we’re gonna do, you’re gonna stay here-..” and Dean barks with his tail tucked in, “no, you can’t come with me, look, I’ll even leave the window open, how does that sound?”

Dean lets out a very deep snarl.

Sam rolls his eyes and sighs, “OK, fine.” He gives in, “but if you give me trouble, I’m so throwing you at the backseat, we clear about that?”

Dean nods.

Puffing out his chest and letting go of a little breath, Sam looks at the alley’s entry with an apparent scowl, “let’s find our Exit Through The comics Shop.”

Sam ghosts his hand over the carved unicursal hexagram, and looks at Dean when a tentative smile plays on his lips before it retires. He opens the door enough for the two of them to get in and it chimes for a welcome; they walk through the arcade decorated with glowing posters and prints, and they hear the echo of outrageous music running rife through the adjoining arches. “Still flamboyant.”

Dean barks, he seems he agrees as well.

Two female teenagers, around the ages of seventeen or sixteen, approach Dean with dotting eyes.

“He’s so sweet! What’s his name?” The blonde one gushes. And Sam only smiles because they don’t know what he does.

The redhead gets on her knees to rub along his crest and withers, Dean only looks away. “Such a good boy, yes you are.” She fusses over him using an excited tone.

“Enjoying the rub there, Dean?” Sam teases, and apparently that’s the straw that broke the camel's back because Dean snarls and shifts away from the girl’s delicate grip. “I’m sorry” Sam tells the two pouting girls, “he doesn’t like to be touched.” He walks ahead, registering their ‘too bad’ and ‘such a shame’ with a nod and a smile. When they’re a little far, Sam can’t help but ask, “Dude, _girls_ drooling over you, throwing themselves at you? I thought that was your kinda thing.”

When Dean only marches like a proud lion, Sam decides to spoil it for him. “What, you have it going with some dog that I don’t know of?”

Dean claws Sam’s leg.

Sam flinches away and scratches the abused leg, “that was uncalled for!”

They take a turn but it leads them to another dead end. Frustration almost eats him alive and all Sam can do is take it out on the poor wall when he punches it with all the power he’s got for now. “Well, this was such an utter waste of time.” For a moment, Sam’s faith nearly falters, but when he checks on his brother and sees him standing closely by, he regains his composure.

Dean perks up, sniffing at the bottom line of the wall. Once, and then twice before he barks.

“What?” Sam prompts, hazel eyes all eager. “You think something might be behind this door?”

Dean nods.

To prove if Dean’s right or wrong, Sam pounds on the door and the hallow echo tells him he might just be right. “So what, I go all American Psycho on this place and swing an axe to break this wall down?” He harrumphs while still staring at the wall, “it’s working hours, Dean. Guess we just have to wait and come back later.”

When all seems fruitless, Sam sees a flicker of hope as the crack he’s made earlier when he punched the wall reveals a vertical line traveling up to the ceiling. Sam senses the wall with his fingertip, and a gentle push of those fingers makes a portal slide open.

Sam and Dean look at each other, and then back at the opening door.

“Stay here and stand watch, make sure to scare off anyone who tries to get in here, understand?”  Saying so, Sam walks into the room which looks more like a chemistry lab than it does a room. He scans the items lined on the bookshelves and tables as a cloud of dust wafts through the air. And it doesn’t go unnoticed by him the shape of the symbol signifying membership of the Men of Letters carved on the walls, and drawn on some of the items. At last, his eyes land on several aged books stacked up in a corner. He hurries to them and kneels, quickly working on reading their titles. “Dean, I think I found what we need!” He calls out, but he suddenly hears hostile barking and he knows his brother has countered trouble already. So he picks up the books and storms out of the room, finding the gothic young women from the counter yelling a ‘pets are not allowed!’, so he closes the door and dashes towards the two. “I’m sorry, we’re scooting.” He smiles thinly at her and sends a scathing glare to Dean, “ _now.”_

Sam drives the car back to the bunker a couple of hours solid, he’s guessed it wasn’t so much of a bright idea to stop for any breathers, not now that they have these books in hand.

Inside the bunker, Sam scouts towards the library like a shot arrow. He lays out the books in his hand on the table, plastering himself over the chair and wasting no second to read them. He’s come to know that Dean went straight to the kitchen to look for something to eat, typical Dean. Sam wonders if one doesn’t lose their human traits if hit by a spell that obviously turns anything to a quadruped.

A few hours later through the night, Sam uses his thumb and index to rub the point between his eyes. He looks around, but he finds no trace of Dean. He picks the book he’s been reading during the past hour and walks in the direction to his room, hearing voices blasting as he nears it. He peers inside to find Dean lying down on the same spot over Sam’s bed, eyes held towards the laptop screen. “Someone sure is having a blast.” He saunters in, throwing his body over the bed with a shallow grunt and he turns the lamp on. “What’ you watching?”

Sam narrows his eyes on the educational animal documentary and his jaw opens. “For real, My Animal Friend? Guess the spell hit you pretty hard.”  And he totally ignores the part where Dean searched up this using his paws only.

Dean only twitches his ears and growls lazily. _Leave me alone_ , _Megamind._ Sam can almost read it.

Snorting, Sam opens the book over his lap and reads, because that’s what he can do at the moment.

The clock ticks, moving to midnight, and then early morning hours between two and three. Dean has long since slid to sleep and Sam closed his laptop with a click. Now, he turns the page because three in the morning isn’t working as a forewarning enough to stop him for staying up more. Only when the clock hits five does Sam finally admit defeat and curls around to sleep.

This night, it’s Robin who comes visiting in his dream, the sweet young woman, the owner of that bar where he first met her. She’s being held as leverage by the same crossroad demon he had the unfortunate run-in with when he was soulless. He’s holding the knife to her neck and threatening to slit it clean if Sam doesn’t back away, but the scene alternates to him being the one holding the knife in his hand, and he looks up at Robin trembling by herself, and sees her terrified eyes begging him to not hurt her. Even though Sam wants to throw the knife away, all it does is come back to his hand, which moves on its own accord and stabs the young woman right in her stomach. Over and over again until blood splashes around and the woman slumps to the ground like a wet rug, her eyes wide open with horror. ‘No, no’ Sam whimpers, ‘No, I didn’t mean it, I’m sorry’ he cries now as he kneels beside the woman, who only chokes out one last word before she light slips from her goggle eyes. ‘Murderer’ echoes around.

Sam jolts awake abruptly. The first thing he is met with is the ceiling, and then Dean’s whimpers as he nudges his muzzle against Sam’s neck. “I’m fine,” He croaks out, sending a lazy hand to Dean’s neck, rubbing gently, “was just a bad dream, I’m OK, Dean.” He sits up and tousles his own disheveled hair. “What time is it?” Of course he knows Dean can’t answer that, but even a one-sided conversation makes the weight of the burden less heavy. “Seven.” Is what his phone’s clock tells him and he words it.

Sam yawns and stretches a little, “I’ll go take a shower, and then we can go for a grocery run.” He looks over at Dean, “write me a list of things you want me to buy for you, minus chewing toys.”

Dean gives a sniff of frustration.

He sets the plan on motion, wasting no second because time is of essence; he’s learned this from his departed grandfather, Henry.

They’re driving down the blacktopped road to a Walmart in West Hastings NE just 56 or so miles away from Lebanon KS. Sam picks a spot and parks the Impala somewhere a little remote.

 “Alright, listen up, Krypto.” Sam leans on the steering wheel as his eyes scan the entrance of the market; it momentarily dawns on him he’s starting to sound just like his brother Dean. “Only service dogs are allowed in there, so I can’t exactly take you in with me.”

Dean barks his disapproval.

“Even if you try to bum a slimebag attitude off me, I’m not going to fake having a real disabling condition so you’d wander in there and do God knows what.” Tapping Dean on the head, Sam opens his door and says over his shoulders, “I’m leaving all the windows open, behave.” And with that, he leaves.

Sam eyes the busy place with incurious eyes, having only one purpose to finish and that is fill his basket with the things and food they need and get out of there. He roams between the uncluttered aisles, picking what piques his attention from time to time. But what rouses his attention the next time is something of a different nature, it’s loud and distinct barking that take him back to the few times Dean barked at him, he whips around to pinpoint where the source is, but enraged and surprised shouting of people interrupt his focus. This can’t be good. He leaves his site and treads towards the open hall which leads to the main entrance, and that’s when he sees Dean running towards his direction with clerks dressed in radiant blue garments in his tail. Sam gives himself a mental face-palm as he waits for Dean to reach him. When he gets by Sam’s feet, all he does is bark continuously in a lower pitch. At first, Sam sighed and only wanted to punch his brother’s jaw and barricade him in a closet for making all this commotion for nothing, but his brother, even if charmed into a dog, still has a hunter’s instinct, and combined with the few abilities dogs have, Sam becomes immediately aware of some imminent threat closing in on them. He ignores the angry clerks throwing intimidations on him and his dog and he crouches down to eye Dean’s brown ones. “Dean, what is it, is it demons?”

But Dean can’t talk and he only barks furiously in return, and honestly, it frustrates Sam.

 “Damn it, just a sign, anything.”

As if hearing his prayers, the ground shakes under them and the momentum tips the items on the shelves down.

“It’s an earthquake!” one of the clerks announces the happening and Sam has to fight the urge to snap at him for being captain obvious in a critical situation like this one.

“Dean, I need you to run back outside, I’ll be right behind you!” Letting go of Dean, who barks in understanding, the latter shoots out of Sam’s grip towards the entrance again. Sam spins his head around to detect any dangerous items around him but he’s in a safe spot, unlike the young female clerk who’s taking shelter at the heel of a shelf of hygiene items; like seriously? Of all places to choose from, you choose the one with most bottles? And it doesn’t really help when the said items are knocked over and almost fall on her with full force, so Sam has to leave the comfort of his zone to shield her with his own body, he’s got to put that lanky body to use at some point, and today just happens to be it.

The earthquake stops abruptly just as it started, and everyone rises up to their feet with a little hesitation. They check on themselves for any injuries, and check each other with uttered sighs of relief when everyone is sound and safe.  Sam is the last one to say he’s fine because having several bottles fall on your back and on your head isn’t so fun. He sits up and scans the girl, “you’re OK, miss?”

She lifts her eyes, and nods, “I guess, yeah.”

The other clerks who were there with her lashing out at Sam are now thanking him for protecting the girl, Harper, he’s come to learn her name which-with all honesty-he isn’t grateful for.

He walks back to the Impala with four bags in hands, and he smiles when he sees Dean pacing back and forth by the car.

“Got 25% discount on these.” He lifts the bags in his hands, “guess you’re not the only superhero in town, Krypto.”

Dean cocks his head.

 “Let’s go back to the bunker.”

The two get into the car after Sam puts all of the bags in the trunk. Before turning the ignition on, Sam glances over at Dean, “you saved us there today.” He starts, “was it the same thing they say about dogs, how they can predict seismic events before they occur?”

Dean only sighs.

Sam snorts, impressed, “that was pretty awesome.”

And with that, their little adventure at Hastings, NE was over for today. And Sam doesn’t regret shuttling between their base and this Walmart even if it what was supposed to be a normal grocery run that ended up gifting him with a few bruises to go by through the night.

When they get to the bunker, Sam’s first concern is to feed his brother, so he walks to the kitchen and sets all the bags over the counter. Contemplating what he should cook next.

Dean is sitting over the table again, eating meat pieces from his plate. Sam is reading from a book, gulping down beer on an empty stomach every now and then.

“Dean.” Sam calls out a few hours later, and Dean rises up from his slouched posture, “I found a recipe to concoct a potion, it can help me read your thoughts.”

Dean shakes his head.

“I understand it’s a personal thing, and it’s not like I’m dying to read what goes on in that nasty head of yours.” He sighs, stiffening his shoulders to display his seriousness, “but we don’t know when the spell will wear off, or if it’s going to at all. With this potion, I can at least understand when you try to inform me of something, and if you’re still hesitant, just take today’s accident for example.”

When Dean doesn’t show any signs of disapproving, Sam claps only once to initiate the plan.

“Alright, let’s gather the ingredients,” he looks at Dean with narrow eyes, “you up for a discovery expedition?”

Dean barks once and leaps off the table.

They set out through the dormitory area, opening the doors and marking where they lead to, but most of which are ordinary rooms, with beds and vanity tables and wardrobes. Sam notes it in his head how every corner is carved with warding sigils. And he doesn’t see why he shouldn’t share this detection with the other.

“Holy, Larry wasn’t lying when he said the place was warded against evil.” The glamour in his eyes shines more as the two of them walk down the endless corridor, “There are embedded sigils everywhere, on the pillars, on the floor, think they were basically used to protect the sanctity of Men of Letters. This place is conserved against demons, evil spirits and whatnot. It’s a real safe spot”

Their little happy trek takes them to a four door lobby with a single hanging lamp in the middle of the ceiling. Sam opens the one door that has 7B plaque affixed on it. He walks in with caution, and he switches the lights on and stares at the new surroundings.

“This looks like a storage room.” Sam looks back at Dean who is following closely behind, “maybe that little trip to Astro Comics’ wasn’t so necessary after all.”

Sam finds the needed ingredients and promises to come back here once he can finally read Dean’s thoughts. At last, he makes the potion and reads the spell off the book, and the two of them wait. But when nothing happens, Sam slouches on the nearest chair at the library and sighs despairingly. “Another dead end.” He eyes the book from which he read the spell and he closes it and flings away, far away from his eyes to see. “Such an obvious bust, and I fell for it.”

“What else is new?”

Sam spins his head so fast towards Dean, widening his eyes in shock and confusion, “did you...” he swallows, “was it you who just talked?”

“I think we’ve made it plenty clear I can’t talk.”

Sam’s features lighten up and he rejoices like he’s just found his favorite book wrapped under a Christmas tree, standing on his two feet to prove how he just can’t contain his happiness, “Dean, I can hear your thoughts! I think it worked-no, it definitely did!” He gushes like a kid, “Say something else!”

“You look like crap?”

Sam chuckles and shakes his head. “Man, it’s so good to finally hear your voice.”

“I can’t exactly say the same about you though.”

Sam laughs and flops down on his chair again, he stares at Dean, awed.

“Well?” Dean drawls, “are we going to get on this or just sit back and stare at each other?”

Sam shakes himself out of his thoughts and nods, “yes, um, you’re right” he clears his throat, “so the books I took from the comics’ shop-..”

“You mean the ones you stole.” Dean cuts him off.

Sam scrunches his face, “whatever” he dismisses it because one, those books are part of their heritage as Legacies, and two, how dare he accuse him of theft when all that he did was for Dean’s sake.  But he adds, “they contain absolutely nothing about the reversal spell, but they do say that the spell is supposed to wear off when the witch who casted it dies.”

“We already ganked the hag, so why am I not changing back?” Dean sounds irked.

Sam shakes his head, “I don’t know, I’ve gone through the books here and the ones we brought back with us, nothing can explain it.”

“Awesome.” Dean sighs.

“But we discovered room 7B,” he shrugs slightly, waving his hand promptly in the air, “maybe I can find something there if I do a throughout job of searching it.”

“I’ll help.” Dean suggests, but Sam has another plan for him.

“Um, no” he tells him, “you need a shower.” He parts Dean’s mouth and eyes those fangs, “and a toothbrush.”

Dean roughly disentangles himself from Sam’s hold, “I know you get a kick out of playing domestic bookworm by yourself, but don’t Nanny McPhee me, geek boy.”

“OK, fine!” Sam grits out, “gosh, I liked you better when you barked.” Saying so, he walks towards the direction of the storage room with Dean at his tow.

“So I was saying, maybe we should use some of the vintage weapons decorating our own bat cave someday.” Dean chats on, searching the shelves with disinterest.

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Sam says over his shoulder, as he has himself rummaging through the boxes for anything witch-related. “Besides, we already have our weapons, and I wouldn’t trade that for a pile of rusty metals.”

Frazzled, Dean lies down on the warded floor and closes his eyes, “wake me up when this is over.”

Sam knits his brows and turns around, “so much for helping me.”

It’s only after half an hour or so later that pain slowly crawls to Sam’s back and head, he grimaces but the pain is bearable so he won’t complain. He looks at the mess he’s made and he puts everything back in order, deciding on continuing this tomorrow.

“Dean, your shower awaits you.”

Dean grumbles and sits up, “yay” he says, with lack of enthusiasm. “This is freaking ridiculous, what next, I’ll get my nails trimmed?”

“You know” Sam walks ahead, “that’s not a bad idea, maybe I’ll put you on a leash and take you for a walk.”

“You can try.” Dean threatens, “But I promise it’ll end with blood. Yours.”

Sam laughs and saunters towards the bathroom, “you’re exaggerating.”

Sam is halfway done as he soaps Dean’s hair coat, twisting the nozzle of the spray to wash all the angles. “You shouldn’t have.”

“I shouldn’t have what?” Dean grumbles.

Sam pauses his ministration, “you shouldn’t have taken the drop for me, you shouldn’t have shielded me, Dean.”

“But I did.” Dean says in a deceptively calm tone, “So get over it.”

“This is selfish of you” Sam repositions himself in his crouch, “I didn’t ask you to take the hit for me!”

“Oh, so this is what I get for trying to save your beacon?” Dean says in an accusatory tone.

“Maybe it’s escaped your mind, Dean, but when you save someone, you’re supposed to keep both them and yourself safe, that’s the whole point.” He heaves a sighs.

“Huh” Dean snorts, “says the guy who trapped Lucifer in his vessel and jumped into the Cage.”

Sam’s eyes tremble as he roams them over his brother’s. “You can’t hold that against me, Dean.” He whispers, looking down at the wet tiled floor now, “what I did was an insignificant recompense, I deserved to be tossed in the Pit for setting Lucifer free, for breaking Hell loose on the earth.”

“See, Sammy” Dean says in a patronizing tone, “that’s exactly where you’re wrong.” Is all he says before splashing everything when he water ruffles himself. Making Sam tip and fall to the back, jarring his bruises in the way, he lets out a gasp and forces his eyes closed.

“Dude, you OK?” Dean stops his playful act for the moment, nosing Sam’s side.

Sam waits until the pain stops poking at him before he opens his bleary-eyes. “Y-yea” he breathes out, “just moved wrong.”

Dean tilts his head at him.

“I’m hungry, aren’t you?”

“You know me” Dean says, “I never say no to food.”

Sam scoffs, “yea, you gourmand.” He stands up, grimacing all the way, “and keep that endless pit of a mouth off my food.”

Over dinner, Dean recounts his changing process details and how he felt his fever high rocket during the night, how he woke up looking grill at Kevin’s sudden call asking him to come and fetch him, and how the changing started the moment he set foot into his Baby. And Sam is grateful it didn’t happen outside the bunker, and that Dean found his way into the dorms.

Soon, Dean calls it night and mumbles something about how dogs have a stupid knack for long naps. He goes to his usual spot over Sam’s bed and sleeps. Sam, on the other hand, he makes his way to the bathroom to enjoy the calmness and privacy that comes with locking himself in. He takes his shirt off to take a closer look at his bruises, and what he finds doesn’t ease his worry. He notes it to take a Tylenol caplet before bed.

Sam leans his head on the edge of the tub, it’s all because he wants to keep the growing headache at bay. But he fails.

He attempts to sleep earlier today because a fever is coming over and honestly, he doesn’t want any unwanted visitors. The first phases of sleep are tempting, and sleeping on his side manages to not irritate the bruises, or aggravate his headache, and what’s more, the medicine is finally kicking in, and very slowly, he finds himself falling to a temporary shut-eye laden with less pain.

 

Lucifer, wearing Nick’s meat suit, is grinning from ear to ear at him.

“Hello, Sam.”

This voice which Sam’s heard more than anything else in his life sends a shudder down his feverish body. He takes a step back but Lucifer raises his index, the movement is so smooth yet so intimidating, “uh uh” he shakes that finger, “you’re going to sit tight exactly where you are.”

Sam loses command over his limbs, he tries to move them, but the invisible restraints keep him from moving.

Lucifer approaches him, his stony-face reminds Sam of things he wished to lock somewhere and throw the key away.

“Sam, what game should we play this time?” He cocks his head, furrowing to show a thoughtful face, but Sam tries his best to ignore it. “Oh, I know, how about ‘do it or your brother dies’, you’ve always loved that game, it’s your favorite!”.

“Stay the hell away from me.” Sam grits out, trying to squirms from the restraints but it all proves futile as they only tighten more around him. “This is just a dream”.

Lucifer’s smirk deepens and he threads even closer to Sam until their faces are touching, “Sam, Sam” he shakes his head, looking apologetic, “You know you can’t stop memories from seeping through that hole you have in your brains, and this?” he punctuates his words with wild gesticulations including them both, “this happened before, when it was just the two of us, having fun?”

The nightmares from down there have been afflicting on Sam for a while now, manifesting his fears and more debilitating then before. He’s been trying his best to evade this part of his memory shelves and not prod at the nightmares The Cage left him with. But it’s becoming a huge hindrance, wanting to move on but little shanks of the past always find a way to wrap their cloak on him and bring him down to the darkest of his nightmares.

He knows this one is no different, Lucifer will torture him, torment him to do something, and when Sam will still say no, Lucifer will create an illusion of his brother, tortured and tormented more than he is and he will extort him using the brotherly love card.

Sam remembers Lucifer playing this game a few times back in the Cage, and as much as it pains him to admit, but he gave in a couple of times because he broke at the sight of his brother-even if just an illusion-being tortured mercilessly. He remembers one of the times, Lucifer, in his nonchalantly sassy way, ordered him to demonstrate fellatio on him, educational purposes, he’d justified.

But the other times, Sam can’t even bring himself to remember because he hated himself for going with Lucifer’s sick plays that he can even alphabetically categorize.

Cold hands reach his hips, and Sam shudders, “don’t touch me!”

But it’s not like The Devil has time to abide by a human’s orders. So he slides his hands down Sam’s cheeks, pressing them while grinding against Sam’s groins. The latter looks away, only praying for the humiliation to stop already.

“Let go!” he musters a deeper tone, but it doesn’t deter Lucifer, at all.

“You’re adorable when you puff out that reedy little chest of yours, makes me all tingly.” He whispers his words into Sam’s ear, and without any warning from his part, one of his fingers presses against Sam’s rim, and then slides down to his covered puckered hole.

“Don’t!” Sam croaks out, “don’t touch me.”

Lucifer’s hair tickles Sam’s jawline, every hushing word, every touch is very gentle, until excruciating pain spreads over his back and Sam shouts out a hurt whimper.

He jerks awake to Dean’s muzzle nudging his cheek, “Sam! Wake the hell up.”

Sam eyes his room, and then looks up at Dean’s eyes. “What happened?”

“You tell me.” Dean retorts begrudgingly, “one minute you’re sound asleep and the next you’re tossing and whining, and if I didn’t know better I’d have said that was Enochian you mumbled.”

Sam closes his eyes and sighs, “I had a nightmare, ‘s all.” When he checks his clock, it shows 4 in the morning, rubbing his face, he tells Dean to go back to sleep while he grabs some water. When Dean asks him about his dream, Sam only shakes his head and shrugs, “I can’t remember.”

The night morphs into a new day, and Sam is at the library, surrounded by new piles of books. He’d assumed that the sooner he’d reverse the spell-that had his brother barking his disagreements-this uber snarly version of Dean could simmer down to his usually irascible being.

“Hiya, Sammy.” Dean marches in all bright eyed and bushy tailed, “made me any breakfast?”

Sam points at the direction of the kitchen with his thump, not taking his eyes off the book he’s reading. “Don’t make a mess.”

When Dean comes back, sits at his spot over the table. Sam decides to share the news with him.

“I called Garth.”

“And what’s the gaunt Care Bear say about this?”

“The same thing this book does,” he motions at the unending pile of books over the table, and by his feet. “In your case, the only way to get rid of the spell is by-and I quote- ‘un-seeding’.”

“Un- what?” Dean props his head up.

Sam breathes through his nose and sits up, “look, the spell is currently bumping into your blood cells, and through your veins, in order to get it out of your system, you’ll have to remove some of those substances out of your body, now” he lifts his index, pulling an open book to him by his other unoccupied hand, “it says here that spilling blood may or may not work, but in most cases, it doesn’t. So, there’s the other option.”

“The ‘un-seeding’ option which we don’t even know what is” Dean scoffs.

“Warmer, you see, I’ve read these books to try to define what the term means, and you wouldn’t believe what I found.” Sam says, amused.

“Let me guess, it has something to do with clipping my nuts?”

Sam smirks, his dimples deepening and it’s a sight Dean hasn’t seen in long. “Actually” he starts, “it’s the opposite.”

Dean cocks his head.

“Look, the books say that the process of ejaculation discharges semen-…”

“Whoa, I have to stop you right there!” Dean snorts, “are you telling me it’s either fuck-or-die?”

Sam bobs his head, “basically, yea.” And by the wrinkled look Dean has on his face, Sam tries to bring his worries down, “or we can go with the first option we have, spill blood, if that’s what you want.”

“You bet your ass that’s what I want, I ain’t-what was that again, discharge semen? Freaking ridiculous, me rutting a Collie, what the hell have we become?” Dean sighs, and Sam can hear his brother tingling with rage.

“Alright then, I’ll bring a knife.” When he stands up too quickly, the room spins around him and he has to balance himself using the table as leverage. He doesn’t notice when Dean stands up, anxious and worried. Sam fights the bile crawling its way up, and he can even feel the color drain from his face as the buzzing in his head becomes louder.

“Sam, Sammy, answer me?” Dean urges, “This is the second time this happens, what the hell, man?”

It takes everything in Sam to hoarse up the next words, “just a little sleep-deprived, nothing serious.” He shakes his head, “I’m fine.”

“Yea, you look fine” Dean’s voice tingles with sarcasm.

“I’ll go get that knife, don’t run away, Lucy.” Chuckling, Sam finally lets go of the table and wobbles his way to Dean’s room since he’s the one keeping his weapons plastered to the wall. He pecks a pocket knife and before walking back to Dean, Sam fetches some body wrap bandages. “Alright, let’s get the show started.”

Sam holds Dean’s forearm and lines the sharp weapon along the fur. “Here goes nothing.”

As Sam makes the cut, Dean hisses and blood soon spurts. Sam quickly bondages the cut and looks up at Dean. “We wait?”

“We wait.” Dean confirms.

The wait obviously doesn’t bring any happenings, only boredom.

“Maybe it’s the same like the spell that changed me, maybe it needs until tomorrow to take effect?” Dean suggests, and Sam finds his suggestion pretty logical, “so we wait until tomorrow and see?”

“You have any better idea?” Dean prompts.

Sam, truthful to his promise, takes Dean for a walk downtown. They walk down the sidewalk to the main street, eyeing the flowering almond trees, and listening to the remnants of last night’s downpour meandering through several gullies.

“You got to love the center of the 48 states, don’t you?” Dean asks, eyes busy scanning the road.

Sam nods, thrusting his hands into the side pockets of his beige jacket. For a moment, it all feels pleasant and fluffy, but it soon devolves from just that to deep yearning and longing. And he admits it to himself, he misses Dean. Yes, his brother is by his side. But it transcends that, what Sam wants is his brother back to normal, sharing an amount of their daily banter dose with him, and letting him know he’s here for him just by one keen look of his green eyes.

And Sam has to admit another thing, “You’re looking pretty calm, giving the current circumstances.” Sam starts, “I mean how in blue hell’ you act low-key calm to paws and a tail, I know for a fact that if it was me, my anxiety would be through the roof!”

“I gotta be honest with you, Sammy” Dean says conversationally, “I did freak out when my body started changing, but it’s not like flipping out would change anything.”

Sam twirls his lips in impress. “Yea, you’re probably right.” He sighs, drowning back to his thoughts.

A woman in outdoor garment is sauntering towards their direction, and she’s also walking out her Spitz.

Dean pauses, which makes Sam do the same. “What is it?” He asks, scanning their surroundings, and that’s when he sees the woman and her _dog_ , “Oh.” Realization downs in. “is she your type?”

Dean growls at him and Sam only laughs.

“Look, if she’s up for it, why don’t we set you up with her?” He asks, half joking and half curious.

This time, Dean bites Sam’s ankle, and Sam only winces. The pain momentarily beats in tandem with his heartbeat, and Sam pales at the sudden nausea. He tries his best to give a stoic face.

“Dean, maybe this is your only chance, I know it’s a little weird-..”

“ _A little?_ ” Dean scoffs, “I may have been turned into a dog, but I’m still human, Sam, at least on the inside, so quit spouting off nonsense.”

When the woman nears them, Sam quits down, he’s figured being seen arguing with his dog would only end up with him in a straitjacket, and that’s the last thing they need on the pile of crap they’ve got now. When she greets them with a smile and walks away, Sam turns to Dean, “it’s been days now, Dean, this thing could be permanent for all we know, that” he points at the Spitz, “could be your cure.”

“Stop, just... stop, OK?” Dean walks away, and after wetting his lips frustratingly, Sam follows suit, guilt-ridden and gaunt looking.

 

An orange tabby is ambling just closer, all relaxed and minding her own business. And suddenly she’s not, because Dean is chasing after her and barking. Sam is quickly running after them, calling Dean out to stop with the commotion.

“I can’t seem to stop,” Dean shouts, still running after the poor cat which leaps up to a tree branch and hisses, “blame it on my prey drive instinct, dude!”

Sam finally catches up with them, he bends over because the chase did not only jar his bruises and nib at his headache, it unplugged the nausea’s exit. “Dean, knock it off already.”

Dean barks more at the startled cat shivering over the branch. “She’s just called me douchebag!”

Sam scrunches, “she, who?”

“The cat, dude! She’s goading me into a fight” Dean switches to look at the cat, “look, sweetheart, the one thing I hate most after flying and feather-head dicks is douche-bags. Still want to try my patience?”

The cat meows at him.

“That’s it, you _bitch!_ ” Dean clings to the bole of the tree, endeavoring to climb it.

“Dean, calm down.” Sam says between gritted teeth, glancing sideways at the people staring at them ruefully.  “We don’t want to drag their attention on us.”

“Is there a problem, sir?”

When Sam turns around, the worst of his nightmare is staring at him above his ray-ban sunglasses. Sam eyes the officer’s blue garment and shakes his head, “just my dog, giving me trouble.”

The young officer eyes said dog and smirks, “what do we have here, a predator preying on a tiny cat?”

Sam winces because there’s no way Dean is going to like how he’s put it.

The officer-a pushover, Sam can tell-takes a treat from his pocket, “don’t worry” he tells Sam, now switching to look at Dean, who is tilting his head at him, “good boy, here” he flings the treat to the ground and Sam has to give himself a loud face-palm.

 

“A ticket!” Sam bellows, “a freaking ticket, Dean, seriously?”

Dean marches beside his brother in an uncomfortable gait, “it’s his fault for treating me like a common dog.”

“Dean, you’re supposed to be a dog, remember?” Sam gestures at all of Dean.

“Look, he had it coming when he interrupted my fun.” Dean explains, “my claws were almost on that damn cat, that stupid Felix called me a douche-bag, can you believe that?”

Sam rubs his eyes, “Dean, if you pull that kind of stunt again, I’m so putting you on a leash, so there you have it.”

 

When the clouded sky clears enough for the sun to make an appearance, Sam gets an idea.

He wheels them towards the direction of the nearest water tower, and he hoists Dean over his shoulders as he climbs up the stairs, gritting his teeth to stop the pain.

“You know, if you drop me” Dean starts, “you can kiss your manhood goodbye.”

“Shut up or I’ll toss you from the top.” He counters, and it works wonders as it silences Dean.

The two finally sit at the ledge, taking in the sight of their small town being slowly painted by marigold shade. The fact that Alaska isn’t very far from town makes it always cold, especially around the winter seasons, but today is special.

It takes Sam back to their sky-gazing times, sipping beer and just being by each other’s side.

The yearning only grows unfed and Sam is not really sure he can contain it anymore.

“Hey, animals have universal language, don’t they?” Sam starts, “but why is it I couldn’t understand what the cat was saying to you?”

“Don’t know, don’t care.” Dean harrumphs.

“Maybe it has something to do with the fact that you’re human, I mean must be some-..” he stops when he realizes that Dean isn’t paying attention, “Do you think that officer is still looking for his pants?” Sam asks, drumming his fingers against the rail.

“I don’t know, he can’t see beyond that big forehead‘s what I know” he sighs, “sadly for us, whatever struck him in the forehead didn’t finish the job.”

Sam chuckles, “he was just doing his job.”

“Yea well, he got owned by a dog so he can kiss his job goodbye.”

When silence sips in, Sam holds it at bay.

“I should’ve brought a six pack at least.”

“Don’t be a tease now, you know I can’t drink.” Dean reminds him, playfully.

“Hell, I won’t add a wasted dog on my tickets.”

“Yea” Dean looks at the sinking sun, “hammered Krypto.”

And it makes both of them laugh.

 

When they get back to the bunker, the vaulted ceiling is the last drop that spills the cup, Sam waits until Dean disappears into his room before he doubles over the table at the center of the war-room, paling impossibly more.

He hears Dean’s gait approaching and all he can see beyond his tunnel vision, is the map on the table.

“Sam, you smell...” he starts, “dude, it’s weird, you smell sick.”

Dogs and their 40 times greater sense of smell, it makes Sam smile, but it’s cut short with a sudden retch.

“Yea” he mumbles, “I’m gonna be sick.”  He scurries towards the bathroom, falling to his knees when he reaches the toilet bowl. The turmoil of the action irritates his bruises more, and the vomiting only doubles a notch.

Dean walks in, “smells like death in here”

Sam musters enough energy to lock Dean out; he’s in desperate need for some privacy at the moment. Although Dean protests, it doesn’t stop Sam from slamming the door in his mug. Sam takes a shower just to silence Dean and stop him from rattling the door with his body. He’d decided he’d take care of the both of them, he’d promised to help Dean out and cure him, but it all came crumbling down, and not even being in tip-top shape has to be inconvenient anymore because life will only continue to show him how disappointing he is.

 

When he gets out wrapped in only a towel, he finds Dean pacing outside back and forth.

“Sam, how’ you feeling now?”

Sam only nods tiredly, “better” he croaks out, heading to his room and for the second time, he locks Dean outside until he has dressed himself. “I know it’s a little bit early, but I’m gonna make dinner now.”

Dean only follows in silence as they enter the kitchen. Dean leaps over one of the swinging stools, and watches as Sam move about.

Sam can feel a weight lead-heavy on his chest, his back and his head. And all he wants to do now is dive nose first on his pillow, and sleep to death. All his limbs are sore and Tylenol is doing a poor job of keeping the pain tied. Gosh, he needs his brother, he needs Dean. And the fact that Dean is sitting right behind him makes Sam feel a lack that nothing can fill, and it all just sends him on the verge of tears. 

“I- I mi…” he starts, slowly turning around, but when he sees Dean is still a dog, he swallows back his words “I’m done.”

He places the food on the table and the two eat in a silent ambiance.

 

Later that night, Dean makes Sam promise that he’d try to sleep tonight. And Sam can’t make a promise like that even if he wants to.

At the deep phases of the night, Sam leaves the warm nest, the tangle of sheets, and the fluffy fur to escape to sweet and conscious oblivion in his brother’s room. He slips into the room; he holds the items with his eyes, the weapons, the desk and the closet, and then the bed. He nears the latter and slumps against it in defeat.

The scent of aftershave and whiskey, and the faint remnants of kerosene infiltrate through his nose, and he feels the yearning encroaching on his awareness like the fog of a dewy winter morning. He’d brought the pile of Dean’s clothes that was in the car back to this room when they came back from Normal, IL. He folded them and put them over the bed, just like his OCD, hygiene maniac of a brother likes them.

Sam plucks Dean’s jacket from the folded pile, and he hugs it to his chest, tossing his head over the soft mattress. “ _Dean_...” .

He doesn’t understand it, this faint longing fueled with the act of being kept from the human touch while in The Pit, from Dean’s touch. It infringes on his freedom to allow love into his life, to allow life into his love. He’s done his hardest to keep these feelings from overflowing, but the one memory from a few years back where Dean came back to their motel room one night completely blasted with cannabis-intoxicated beer, and took it all out on Sam with all the verbal skills he’d polished the moment Sam walked out on him and his father, but when that did not sate his growing hunger for the unknown, Dean took a different approach, and took whatever that which he desired by physical attrition. And all Sam could see through the dim room were the tendrils of dust gleaming under the moonlight, and all he could feel then, was Dean’s body invading his. And in spite of the dull pain, Sam did not utter a single complaint. And by the next morning, Dean had forgotten everything, and Sam did not push the issue.

The old and the recent happenings made it so that Sam can’t make it anywhere without his brother’s presence by his side. Every failure only asserts it; he can’t go far even if the opportunity hit him hard in his face.

And even if Dean might think it is betrayal if he ever found out about this, Sam won’t stop yearning for big brother’s comfort, for his barely-there touches, for everything that makes Dean, Dean.

Damn it, he’d promised he wouldn’t crumble down at least until Dean was cured, but the might with which lack of his brother’s human touch on him hit like an undaunted force. And pretty soon, he finds himself sliding a hand down the waistband and then lodging it over his cock; he takes a deep inhale of the jacket in his hand and the friction down his crotch increases. But just as he’d thought, the yearning is too great and no vehemently heated ministration from his part is going to please him anymore. So he shifts only slightly to push his trackies down to his thighs, and he parts his legs. He uses the same now-slick hand to tease along his puckered entrance; taking another sniff of the jacket and enhancing his persuading skills to convince himself it is alright to sink that finger in. He gives a low whimper at the mere contact, but it gets mumbled by the fabric in his hand. His carving grows frantic and he grows impatient with it, deciding one finger isn’t enough to soothe the maze setting him aflame, so he adds more. Whining as the flesh tears open, but this isn’t the first time he did this so the odd feeling is bearable. By the time he has the fourth digit in too deep, slight tremors of pleasure rack his body, but the composed serenity is faltering as his body screams for a certain man’s touch.

 “Sam?” Dean’s voice pervades the air, pulling Sam from his private élan.

Sam sits up rapidly, hiding his middle with the jacket in hand when he sees Dean-even as dog- looking away.

“D-Dean, what’ you doing here?” He asks, hurriedly. Aware of his profoundly flushed cheek.

“What’ _you_ doing in here, this is my room.” Dean counters, still looking away.

Sam’s eyes quiver, his grip on the jacket only tightens more. “I- I was just…”

“Don’t.” Dean says for him, “I know what you were doing, I can even smell that stench.”

Sam gulps audibly.

“Sam, I have no objection against your personal preferences-…”

Sam lifts a hand to stop him right there, like it’s a foregone conclusion that Dean will give in to his whims, “Chide me when you’re bipedal again, until then, save the attitude.”

“But that’s my name you’ve been calling, Sam.” Dean finally looks at him. “And that’s my jacket you’re holding.”

Sam shrugs, attempting to hide his embarrassment, “so?”

“ _So_?” Dean scoffs, a little peeved judging by the snarl that accompanies his scoff, “dude, you’ve been getting off on thoughts of your own _brother_.”

Betrayal, this is the consequence of betraying his brother.

Sam’s brows twitch swiftly, but he gives his perfected poker-face, refusing to be goaded by his brother’s blatant truth, when not long ago, he was raped by the same brother.

“Yea, so?” He shrugs again, almost halfheartedly.

Dean snorts. “You do know we’re brothers, right?” when Sam only stares back, Dean adds, “Sam, man, whatever this is-..”

Sam finds that the perfect moment to take advantage of the situation, he’s already down at the bottom of this darkness, and so what’s one more failure?

“ _This_ , is your only way out, Dean.” He says, bereft of words for a second before his courage comes back to him, “maybe -no, I know it’s a little fucked up, but our current problem isn’t just about me and you and what we want, it’s about _saving_ you, if we don’t do this now, who knows what might happen.” He takes a little breath, but before he even finishes, Dean beats him to it.

“There we go with that fuckload of crap again,” he sighs, belligerence latent in his voice, “OK, so maybe the first option didn’t work, what, are you suggesting I fuck my own little brother now-and allow me to add, while I’m a dog?”

“ _Yes_ ” Sam’s eyes bug out as if that’s a given in order to cure Dean and Dean is just too stupid to see it, “Dean, if we don’t do this you’re going to be stuck in that form, _forever_.”

“Then so be it!” Dean bellows, disdainfully. “I’d rather be left with an urge to sniff butts than fuck my own kid brother.”

“You were pretty fine with it the first time.” He mumbles, and Dean snarls.

“What was that?”

“Nothing” Sam looks around him, but nothing really registers. He smiles amiably but it vanishes too instantaneously, “you can’t do this to me, alright?” He says, “I want you back, Dean, not half of you, not just your voice, I want all of you.”

Dean only casts his eyes downwards.

“Dean, I know it must be hard on you, but let’s face it, man” he gives a humorless snort, “for how long are we going to keep on like this? We both know you can’t stay a dog for the rest of your life, you’re a _hunter_ , Dean.” He enunciates it, hintingly. “We’re supposed to be out there, hunting things, and saving people.”

“It’s funny how me fucking you is the opening of a new era, nice little speech, Sammy.” If he had human features, Dean would be winking by now.

“Hey,” Sam’s drooped shoulders tense just a little, it’s barely noticeable. He ushers Dean to come closer, which he does, and then Sam pets the floppy hair round his neck, “don’t worry about me, Dean. I’ll be fine, and for what it’s worth, I kind of want it.”

Dean tries to look away, but Sam’s hands keep him for it.

“Look at me,” he wills, soothingly “you've always done things for me, you've always been there for me, now that I can give you something in return please don't take it away from me." His voice almost falters but he holds his ground, "don’t worry about me, big brother, let me do something for you this time, please.”

When Dean keeps his retorts to himself, Sam shifts away from the hesitance’s hold and he straightens up, peeling off his shirt, and his trackies along with his boxers. He stands completely naked, and he suddenly feels shy under the weight of his brother’s stare. He turns around, lying in the same earlier position.

“Christ, Sammy” Dean almost yelps.

“Dean, if you love me, please don’t say no more” he says over his shoulder, “just do it.”

“My sack is pretty flaccid, so I’m not really sure if it’s gonna work.” Dean points out, tucking his tail between his legs.

“You need to hump, Dean. It’ll get in the right spot on its own.” He informs Dean as the latter places his pasterns over Sam’s back, and his hocks over his parted thighs.

“humph,” Dean grunts, “guess it pays to have a nerd for a brother.”

“Dean, just” Sam wets his lips, “just do it, hurry.”

Dean does as requested, he humps just as requested, and Sam beneath him, sighs longingly. One of his hands travels down to his cock, fisting it in preparation of the coming friction.

Dean’s penis finds its rightful place and he thrusts in, and Sam moans under him.

“Sam, your back-“

“Dean, shut up” he huffs out raspily, feeling Dean’s pasterns prodding him in his back; “please, just… continue.”

Sam buckles is hips which results in sudden friction that stirs Dean, and he is thrusting into Sam again. Sam cups his cock and rubs it in sync with Dean’s thrusts, moaning and whimpering all the while. He can feel a fine sheet of sweat coating his forehead, and soaking his fringes. But all he can focus on is the feeling of Dean’s penis growing and swelling inside of him.

“This feels so weird.” Dean breathes out, “I can feel the blood rushing to the base of my cock, man.”

“Don’t panic.” Sam soothes between mewling moans, “that’s called a knot, it won’t last too long. Now could you please quit with the commentary?”

Sam paces up his stimulation, feeling on the verge. And as Dean’s swelled knot initiates cramming inside his hole, Sam feels a rush to his abdomen; he lifts his face off the bed sheets a little, feeling his self-restraint snap and all his vision turns white as his sends his come over his shirt which he’d laid out before, crying all the way. The tensing makes Sam’s puckered hole contracts against Dean’s penis, holding it inside. Dean keeps on unloading his sperm for a good minute and a few more seconds, and then he swigs a leg over Sam’s back.

“The hell” Dean huffs out, “it’s not coming out.”

Sam sags over the matters, riding out his ejaculation. When he regains enough strength, he sets himself to ease his brother’s worry. “Obviously, you don’t understand what a knot is.” Sam chuckles tiredly, “this won’t take more than a few minutes, in some cases it’d last or exceed an hour.”

“An hour?” Dean echoes, disbelievingly. “It was enough you bore the brunt of this, now you have to keep that thing locked inside you for an hour?”

“Relax.” Sam chuckles some more, “it doesn’t feel _that_ bad. Besides, I was the one who suggested we do this, so don’t beat yourself over it.”

Dean sighs.

“Also, I was the one who promised to change you back no matter what.” He relents more over the comfort of the pillow, “umm” he sighs wistfully, “this entire room smells like you, Dean.”

“Of course it does” the other says, “I live here.”

Silence sips in.

Sam can’t have it.

“Dean, I’m sorry.” He starts, “I took advantage of your situation, but I don’t regret it, in fact, I’d do it again.”

“Sam, if this doesn’t work-..”

“It will, I promise it will.” Sam assures, “you can trust me on this.”

The two fall silent, and Sam doesn’t’ have the heart to interrupt this with his tirade of nonsensical mumbling.

Seconds grow into minutes, and minutes change into an hour.

Sam can feel Dean’s peaceful snores, and gradually, even the alien member inside him eases out very slowly. Sam props up to check on his brother, and he watches bewildered as the brown and black hair coat change into soft human skin. Sam gives an involuntary happy squeak, but he calms down when Dean only continues to snore. Sam lifts himself from his place, abandoning the warmth and all. He takes a change of clothes from Dean’s wardrobe and he helps his brother-who is still out of it-dress and then he lays him comfortably on his pillow.

He makes an aborted movement with his hand, ghosting it over his brother’s face. Maybe after this, something in Dean will change and he might come to accept everything that happened tonight. And the joy urges Sam to take his brother’s lips in his, kissing ever so softly.

Sam then balls his clothes and takes them with him, he hobbles to the door and glances one last time over his shoulder at his brother, loving that Dean is finally back.

He goes into the bathroom, tosses that pile of clothes into a basket. He takes a thorough shower, and then he walks back to his own room.

Though when he tries to sleep, he feels another thing lacking, and he immediately realizes it’s the ball of fur that used to sleep beside his curled posture, but after a thought, he doesn’t regret it, any of it.

His brother is back, he’s normal again. And he can worry about Dean’s reaction tomorrow, now, he will only rejoice happily as his hearts pounds in his ears.

When the excitement leaves him, Sam feels suddenly too tired. And he surrenders to the realm of sleep.

 

Sam jolts up, the revived excitement is what woke him, this much he knows. He checks his clock that shows him eight in the morning, he almost cries with happiness because this has got to be the longest he’s slept.

He yawns, but suddenly a vivid flash of last night’s happenings pops up in his head, and Sam’s suddenly too awake and ready.

He makes his way through the lobby to the kitchen, he peers inside of it and is met with AXE perfume first thing of all, and he finds Dean, radiant in his orange plaid flannel, holding a newspaper by a hand and drinking his coffee from his mug by the other. When he looks up, Sam can taste the remnants of Dean’s aftershave in the tip of his tongue.

“Sam.” Dean looks up from the paper, folding it in two and putting it aside. “Just brewed some coffee, knock yourself out”

Sam’s dimpled smile falters and he gradually furrows, so this is the approach Dean’s taken, ignoring everything that happened?

He nods, and approaches the coffee pot, pouring some into his own cup.

“Umm” Dean starts, “last time I woke up, I was making my way to where Kevin is,”

Sam turns around, tasting the coffee and lending his attention to his brother.

“But today I woke up to him calling again, and guess what, he said the first time he called was almost a week ago.” He looks perturbed as he voices out his concern, and Sam kind of appreciates that. “I have no idea what this is, man, we did gank that witch two nights ago, right?”

Sam smiles, bemused, so amnesia it is. He sits down across Dean, setting his cup aside to shift his attention on his brother. “Yes, and no.”

Dean cocks his brow.

Sam looks down at the table, smirking shyly, his side fringes fall down but he tucks them back behind his ear instantly. “We did gank that witch, but that was more than four days ago.”

Dean sends both his brows to his hair line. “So what, I get zapped and I’m suddenly The Time Traveler?”

“Yes” Sam shakes his head, laughing at his brother’s early gig, “no.” He swallows his uncertainties, and leans his elbows on the table, wrapping his arms to his chest. “we wasted the witch, but there was a rub, the spell kinda worked, it changed you.”

“Into what?” Dean’s voice is husky and deep. It tells Sam he doesn’t want to play around.

“Into a dog.”

Their eyes stay locked on each other’s.

Dean tries to sneer but he fails halfway, “come again?”

“The incantation with which the wicked witch hit you was a species change spell.” He says, “it changed you into a dog, but lucky for you, I was able to reverse it, it took me a few days though.”

“So why I don’t have any memory of my time as a-” he clears his throat, “dog.”

Sam leans back, sipping from his cup again. “No idea.”

“And how did you reverse it?” Dean looks curious as he arches an inquisitive brow.

“Spilling Blood spell.” Sam answers, “I hit the books and got the idea.”

And the two fall into a thoughtful silence again, each contemplating his own inner fears and worries.

“Alright, Dr. Dolittle” Dean pushes off of the table, “we better head to Branson, Missouri now.”

Sam looks up with a pair of confused eyes, “why?”

Dean narrows his eyes, “Why what?”

“Why are we going for a seven hours drive to Missouri?” He rephrases his question with a hint of disapproval.

“To win the Little Miss Sunshine Contest, what’ you think, we’re meeting with Kevin, come on” he ushers, “go get dressed.” Saying so, he flounces out of the kitchen.

Sam’s eyes stay locked on the door, waiting for a hope to flicker, waiting for his brother to come back in and tell him he remembers everything; but the hope burns to ashes when he reminds himself that Dean didn’t remember the first time he fucked his little brother, why should this time be different. Dean’s memory coming back to him? That was about as likely as hell freezing over.

 

He can always run towards the light that is his brother, can always run from the darkness that wants to enchain him to its endless pit.

But he chooses not to.

His self-righteous brother would break down if he ever learned the truth, and to be honest, seeing his big brother upset does not set well with Sam.

Right now, he really misses the dog; at least he could ruffle him whenever he wanted.

Strange, isn’t it? How contradictory humans are.

 

As they gear up, Sam stands beside the Impala’s trunk, tucking his duffel in.

“Hey, ready?” Dean appears in front of him suddenly which makes Sam flinch,

“You know that this could still be a trap, right?”

“I know” Dean nods proudly.

“And you’re still walking right through it?” Sam looks baffled by now.

“Kevin needs us,” he tells him his reasons with the same glint in his emerald eyes, “and the kid doesn’t deserve to be dragged into this, so we go there, we fetch him and hide him somewhere safe.” Turning around, Dean mumbles something but it goes unheard, Sam is behind him, staring dazedly, he extends his hand but he aborts the gesture when he quickly comes back to his senses.

Dean takes his place at the driver’s seat, gushing on about how it smells like dogs in his car; and Sam’s lips break into the saddest smile out there, he’s grateful his brother can’t see it.

Although he can’t be with his brother the way he wants, he still thinks there’s some consolation when he sees himself as Dean’s equal. And there’s even pride when he thinks how his brother would always choose him over anything or anyone else.

He’ll keep this ace up his sleeve and always watch from the background, even if it’s cowardice, it’s still safer from turning this whole thing into a melodrama.

 

The low rumble of the Impala reverberates, and Sam glances over at his brother’s smug face, it prompts Dean.

“Like what you see, bitch?” Dean jokes with a sarcastic bite. And Sam rolls his eyes, but smiles nonetheless.

“Grow up, jerk.”


End file.
